Spawn: The Eternal Prelude Darkness. Pain. What . oh. Oh god. I'm alive! CHOOSE. What? Oh great God almighty in Heaven . NOT QUITE. CHOOSE. Choose . choose what? What are you? Where am I? Am I in Hell? NOT YET. DO YOU WISH TO RETURN? Yes! Yes, of course I want to go back! But . what's the catch? What is all this? IT IS NONE OF YOUR CONCERN. WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE FOR A RETURN? TO SEE YOUR LOVED ONES, TO ONCE MORE TASTE LIFE? WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE? I . I'm dead, aren't I? YES. But . what can I give? I am dead, so I have nothing! NOT TRUE. YOU HAVE YOURSELF. Myself? I don't understand . is it my soul you want? NO. I ALREADY HOLD YOUR SOUL . I WISH TO KNOW IF YOU WOULD SERVE ME WILLINGLY IN RETURN FOR COMING BACK. Serve . to see my wife again . yes . to hold my children once more . yes. I will serve you. VERY WELL. THE DEAL IS DONE . In a rainy graveyard, something fell smoking to the ground. It sat up, shaking its head, looking around itself. Strange. Why was he lying here? He tried to stand up, surprising himself by leaping at least twenty feet into the air, landing as smoothly as a cat. How . then something caught his attention. He stared into the puddle of rainwater, trying to discern the vague shape that must be his own face. And then he screamed. Because what stared back was the burn-scarred skullface of a corpse, its eyes glowing a deep green. And then he heard a mocking snigger behind him. He whirled about, ready to kill the intruder. But what sat on a gravestone was only a pretty, dark haired girl, her eyes . red? She wasn't human. "Take it easy, soldierboy . relax with the murderous reflexes and we'll get along just fine . allow me to introduce myself. I'm yer new teacher . ." The Deal "I'd sell my soul for anything, anything but you . ." -- Marilyn Manson, "Long Hard Road Out of Hell" So ya took the easy way, huh? The big horned dude told ya that ya could return, but not until ya gave him yer fealty . sucker! Now for the real deal. Yer a Spawn. That's short of Hellspawn, by the way, so don't get any ideas. Yep, yer in thrall to a demon. The demon, to be exact. He goes by the title and name of Malebolgia, and he pretty much calls the shots in his own private Hell. And now yer another little soldier in his ever growing army. Neat, huh? I always thought it was too good for you human wussies, but hey, that's me . what? Oh, the looks . well, too bad, yer kinda stuck looking like the hamburger that lost against a flamethrower . and those glowing eyes . babe, i gotta tell ya, them eyes make every succubus crazy, ya know? They just throw themselves all over ya. Of course, then they kill ya, but that's succubi for ya . Okay, first off the suit. Yeah, I know, "what suit" . the one ya got implanted in yer neural system. It's a kind of symbiotic creature that pretty much lives for as long as you do, and protects ya when necessary. What's it looks like? Well, it kinda moulds itself to yer personality . this wimp we got in New York looks like he's wearing spandex. He must've watched too many cartoons as a kid . so the minute the suit comes out, it looks like what yer personality prefers it to look like. And no, it ain't a conscious design. It's kinda merged with yer mind by now, so it takes its commands from ya, does what ya tell it ta do, and protects ya when necessary, like when you ain't ready. Catch! See? Them chains appeared outta nowhere, yeah . an' they caught the knife before it hit ya. Not that a knife would hurt ya in any case...see, we kinda ditched yer old body...it was all rotten an' stinky anyways, so we replaced it with what we prefer t'call necroplasm. It's raw Hellstuff, ya might say, an' yer made of it. "Da shtuff dreamsh are made off..." Heh heh heh heh... Okay, first of all, ya gotta wait for a while until the suit matures, then it kinda comes out on its own . ya might not want anyone near; it can get pretty painful an' messy . but when ya got it, that suit'll pop out whenever ya need it, an' whenever it thinks ya need it. Cool, eh? Awww. what'samatter, miss yer old bod? Don't. It wouldn't do ya any good now, anyway. See, yer a soldier in Malebolgia's army, an' that kinda brings responsibilities. So ya kill who we say ya kill, ya walk where we say ya walk, or ya go straight back ta Hell, to serve yer sentence . as easy as that. Ya break the contract, we send ya back. Ya do what yer told, we leave ya be. Okay, now fer the fun part. The war. Sooner or later, yer gonna run into an angel. And no, they ain't nice, cuddly little critters with cutesy wutesy goodness and love. They're as mean as we are, only they say they're the good side. God? God don't work here anymore, bub. He or she or it or whatever God was stopped interfering a long time ago, now shut up and I'll tell ya more. See, the angels have this kinda bias against yer kind. They're convinced all Spawn are evil sumbitches, who must be killed, so they send down these hunters, who do nothing but kill Hellspawn. And they don't ask if they're nice Hellspawn first. To them, the only good Spawn is a dead Spawn. And frankly, I say the only good angel is a dead one. Now, if ya come with me, I'll tell ya about yer new powers, an' take ya to yer first target . we need ya ta kill this little serial killer we know of, it's just yer kinda work . hey, just 'coz we be demons don't mean we be evil . we wanna get rid of the psychos and killers as much as anyone . The Truth "I ought to go on Oprah . 'Today! Dead guys whose widows married their best friends, only on . .' nah." -- Al Simmons, "Spawn" The truth is that when you say "Yes" to Malebolgia, you're screwed. Basically. First of all, they never bring you back to a place or point where you can restart your life. No, of course not; that would be playing fair, wouldn't it? And if there is one thing Malebolgia never does is play fair. Second, they always make sure to put you in an environment where you will have to fight constantly to stay alive. And no matter what their "teachers" might say, they never give you enough info to get by. Why? To make you as evil as they are. The saying that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions is very accurate. And they do make the worst of your intentions. Okay, you think you might be able to do some good with your new powers. Well, good luck. You'll need it. Because Hell will throw everything they can in your way, to push you farther and farther towards the point where you just don't care anymore. And that's when they take you back to Hell. They also want you to kill muggers, killers, psychopaths, all those scourges of society, because, well, they got you, right? When did they get you? Right. After you died. So whenever you kill somebody, you contribute another recruit to the army of Malebolgia. Okay, some say there is a way out. But no one knows what it is. Some say it's turning your face towards violence and hate, and starting to use compassion instead. But the man known only as Cogliostro says that this is pretty much both true and false. That's because he did it that way. But he's been alive for millennia now. Do you really want to live forever? Wasn't the whole point that you wanted to come back and grow old with your loved ones? Well, be that as it may, you have to know this. Never trust a demon. When they don't lie, they're only telling you half the truth. And when they're only telling you half the truth, they're completely omitting something else, even more important. So stay alert. Don't kill anyone. And try to keep your suit under control . The Powers There is a slight advantage to being made of necroplasm. First of all, you can pretty much heal any normal injury within minutes, or even seconds in some extreme cases. The downside is that whenever you do this, you drain your own personal energy, and as soon as that energy run dry, you're pretty much toast. The second advantage is that you can make yourself look like a normal human. You just won't look like your old self. Most probably, whenever you do the body change, you look like the exact opposite of yourself. A tall, muscular black man might become a short, scrawny blonde white man, or in some extreme cases, change gender entirely. And the change takes so much power it's usually never used.